{"product_id":"meadow-blazingstar-seeds-liatris-ligulistylis","title":"Meadow Blazingstar Seeds (Liatris ligulistylis)","description":"\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-family: 'Futura Medium',sans-serif;\"\u003e“Some decades ago, back when I worked extensively across the U.S. for Xerces, I used to spend long, languid summer days driving around, checking in on prairie plantings in far flung places…the Dakotas, the Ozarks, sleepy corn communities in Indiana. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-family: 'Futura Medium',sans-serif;\"\u003eI\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-family: 'Futura Medium',sans-serif;\"\u003en those travels it began to creep into my mind that I was seeing a lot of monarchs on the meadow blazingstar. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-family: 'Futura Medium',sans-serif;\"\u003eI was no stranger to most of the widespread blazingstar species, having spent years earlier managing tallgrass prairie seed crops as a freelance crop consultant. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-family: 'Futura Medium',sans-serif;\"\u003eAll of them attract monarchs, but something different was going on with the meadow blazingstar (Liatris ligulistylis). The monarchs were more numerous, more active with this particular species, almost feverishly so. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-family: 'Futura Medium',sans-serif;\"\u003eThis thought parked itself in my head, and lingered there. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-family: 'Futura Medium',sans-serif;\"\u003eSome time later, I contracted with my friend Keith in Minnesota to plant a seed production plot of this plant. Keith was (and still is) a longtime experienced and excellent grower of other blazingstar species. He planted the new -- and small -- plot of meadow blazingstar, adjacent to a much larger field of the taller, showier, more prolific prairie blazingstar (Liatris pychnostachya). \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-family: 'Futura Medium',sans-serif;\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-family: 'Futura Medium',sans-serif;\"\u003eFor a season our crop of meadow blazingstar grew. It was scraggly and unhealthy. A bunch of plants died. They didn’t like the soil. The survivors produced pathetic, shabby Dr. Suess flowers, a weak version of what the plant could potentially be under better growing conditions. Still, the monarchs came. And in coming they consistently flew over and through the glorious, tall, healthy, prolifically flowering, nectar-rich prairie blazingstar, to alight and fly in dizzying circles on and around the few small rows of sad looking meadow blazingstar. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-family: 'Futura Medium',sans-serif;\"\u003eIt was uncanny. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-family: 'Futura Medium',sans-serif;\"\u003eKeith made the offhand comment to me one day that, while he couldn't he couldn’t explain it, he felt like the monarchs were coming from a long way off specifically for these flowers. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-family: 'Futura Medium',sans-serif;\"\u003eI had the same haunting feeling.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-family: 'Futura Medium',sans-serif;\"\u003e Later, \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-family: 'Futura Medium',sans-serif;\"\u003ethe meadow blazingstar was harvested, and the seed heads stored in a drying cart to ripen. The monarchs still came, clustering to the cart. When the seed was threshed and run through the air screen cleaner – blasting dust and chaff away and sieving out the good seed – the monarchs still came, seemingly attracted to the dried fragments and flower remnants of the cleaning process. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-family: 'Futura Medium',sans-serif;\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-family: 'Futura Medium',sans-serif;\"\u003eThis experience turned out to be beautiful and disquieting to me. Like a dream, something unreal, a direct conversation with the Divine. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-family: 'Futura Medium',sans-serif;\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-family: 'Futura Medium',sans-serif;\"\u003eYears ticked by.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-family: 'Futura Medium',sans-serif;\"\u003eI eventually made a brief note of this plant’s power to attract monarchs in Xerces’ 100 Plants to Feed the Monarch book. I told a few colleagues about these experiences. When they looked, they saw the same thing: a single meadow blazingstar inflorescence can often attract more monarchs than hundreds of other immediately surrounding prairie plants. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-family: 'Futura Medium',sans-serif;\"\u003eFor sometime I thought the meadow blazingstar might be spoofing the monarchs – perhaps mimicking butterfly sex pheromones to attract them as pollinators. But with a little observation, that theory didn’t seem to make sense. Both male and female monarchs are seemingly attracted in roughly the same ratio. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-family: 'Futura Medium',sans-serif;\"\u003eAnd yet something unusual is happening here. Indeed, while the monarchs do nectar on the flowers of this plant, they also spend time just loafing on it, and even more confoundingly, fluttering around it without a clear intent – spending calories and time in some rapture only understood by themselves.”  \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-family: 'Futura Medium',sans-serif;\"\u003e-Eric Lee-Mäder, 2026 \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-family: 'Futura Medium',sans-serif;\"\u003e--\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-family: 'Futura Medium',sans-serif;\"\u003eMeadow blazingstar is native to the Upper Midwest, Northern Great Plains, and Rocky Mountains. It prefers well-drained soil, and needs full sun. This plant is also a favorite of beautiful soldier beetles.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-family: 'Futura Medium',sans-serif;\"\u003eApproximately 150-seeds (0.2 grams).\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Northwest Meadowscapes","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50109347627254,"sku":null,"price":9.97,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1274\/1723\/files\/meadow-blazingstar-seeds-liatris-ligulistylis-7533654.jpg?v=1774509187","url":"https:\/\/northwestmeadowscapes.com\/products\/meadow-blazingstar-seeds-liatris-ligulistylis","provider":"Northwest Meadowscapes","version":"1.0","type":"link"}